David's Story: A Surrenderverse Sideshot
by SlytherinSon
Summary: Who is David Bohannon and how did he come to join the Quileute Pack?
1. Chapter 1

**David's Story: A Surrenderverse Sideshot**

 **Chapter 1: Leaving Home**

It started with a telephone call. The uncle I had only met once, my mama's brother, was dead. It continued with a story and a fever burning brightly through my veins. At the end, my world had been turned upside down and my home, my beautiful bayou, where I had once hoped to live and die, was lost to me.

I hated this cold, rainy place I was now tied to. I missed the sun and the warm humid breezes that carried the scents of magnolia, mangrove and my beloved lilies that couldn't survive this far north. I even missed the buzz of the mosquitoes over the waters of the bayou where I was born. Over time and with the help of my Alpha and my pack, I came to accept the life that was now mine, even find some measure of peace.

When my Alpha's mate arrived and one of my cousins was sent upriver, I found something I had lost, a home. Even though I will always morn my lost lilies, I found my place and am satisfied, but that is a different tale, and not mine to tell. This is the story of how I came to be in this cold and lonely place and of how I came to be what I am.

I suppose I should start at the beginning, how I came to La Push in the first place. I was born in Lily Bayou, Louisiana, a tiny town surrounded by bayous, about 15 miles west of New Orleans. My mama, a Quileute woman by the name of Avonlea, came down here from Washington State in the mid-seventies to go to the University of Louisiana. She immediately met my daddy, Micah, who she always says is the palest white man with the most striking eyes she had ever seen. Four years later they were married, and together they produced the oddest looking baby Lily Bayou had ever seen. Me. Due to complications with my birth, I would be my parent's only child, but at that point I am sure they figured one was enough.

Now fast forward nineteen years and you have a 6'5" tall brick house of a man, with strawberry blonde curls, my daddy's ice-blue eyes and my mama's dark bronze skin. Trust me, the first few times you see me, you look twice. So, anyway, here I am, a year out of high school with no plans on going to College or ever leaving the Bayou. I earned my living taking tourists fishing out on the safer bayous and locals out to the deeper ones. I was a legend, nobody knew those waters better than me, I never got lost and I never ran across more trouble than I could handle. It was a good life, working my own hours and making enough money to afford a place of my own, dinky though it was. I had Lyla and Lex in my bed every night, I was even thinking about asking them to marry me. I wish I knew how they are, I wish I could have explained or at least said goodbye, but I hope they are happy wherever they are.

Ahem, sorry, I just… you know what, never mind, back to the story at hand. I knew something was up when my mama showed up at my apartment and started packing me a bag…

"David! What is going on, where are you going?" Lex said, running up to me when I walked into the apartment.

"What are you talking about? I ain't going anywhere 'cept to get Lil in an hour". I said.

"Then pourquoi votre mère in the bedroom packing a bag for you?" Lex practically shrieked. I wrapped an arm around him and pinched the bridge of my nose. Alexis is a bit of a drama queen, but when he lapses into French, he is seriously upset. I took his face in my hands and forced him to look at me.

"Alexis, mi amour, I just got home, I don't know why my mother is here. Just calm down, stop speaking French and we'll find out what's going on." I said, kissing his forehead and leading him to the bedroom.

"Mama, what's wrong? You know you're scaring the stuffing outta Lex, right?" she didn't even look at me, just kept packing the bag. "Mama! Talk to me damn it, what are you doing? Where are we going?" I grabbed her arm and she finally looked at me. Her eyes were red and swollen, I could tell she had been crying, but she still didn't say anything.

"Mama?" I said, my voice breaking, "Mama, please, now you're starting to scare _me_." When she finally spoke, it was worse than I expected, it was the beginning of the end.

"Your uncle is dead," she said, holding back tears, "we have to fly up to Washington of the funeral." With that, she turned back to the bag she was packing.

My eyes widened in shock. I had only met Uncle Harry once, when I was about 10, but I remembered him, a mountain of a man who taught me to track just about every living thing, how not to get lost and who looked so very much like my mother. Dimly I felt someone pulling me out to the living room and sitting me down.

"Lex…" I whispered.

His thin arms came up around my neck, pulling my head down to rest against his chest. "Hush now, amour, I will get Lyla, you will go with your mother, and when you come back, we will be here. It will be alright. Lyla and I both love you, remember that."

I nodded and held on to him. It was all I could do, I was frozen with shock. Soon enough my mother emerged from the bedroom. With my bag in in one hand and my own hand in the other, she led me to the truck where my father was waiting. That was the last time I saw Lex and Lyla. Even years later, I look back on that day and wonder if, in some weird way, Alexis knew I wasn't coming home.


	2. Chapter 2

**David's Story: A Surrenderverse Sideshot**

 **Chapter 2: Becoming the Wolf**

The ride from Seattle to La Push was silent. None of us knew what to say. I was still in that half world between shock and normalcy. Dad had to concentrate on driving, and Mama, well, Mama seemed kind of nervous, but it was hard to tell with all the grief running through us.

We stayed with Uncle Harry's family. Under different circumstances it might have been a happy reunion, as it was, it was awkward. Aunt Sue was nice enough, but Leah and Seth avoided me like the plague, which confused me. I expected some amount of awkward adjustment, but not the outright avoidance and exclusion. It was like they had a secret they were determined to keep me out of. If I had known then what I know now, I would have fled back to the Bayou and damn the funeral and the events afterward.

The funeral was uneventful as far as funerals go, having never been to one, I had no real reference point, but there wasn't any screaming over the coffin or anything. Afterward came a meal and then, when the sun went down came the bonfire and the sing for Uncle Harry. When the sing ended and the firelight began to die, Billy Black took the stage and so began the telling of the legends and the histories of my mother's people. I knew in my head they were my people as well, but my heart still told me different. I had grown up away from the life and traditions of the Quileute's, I had never learned to be proud of the blood that flowed through my veins alongside my Anglo fathers; never known the heritage born of my red skin and towering stature, never truly understood some of my mother's ways, and to my shame, had never thought to ask.

As I sat with the family I had never known, letting Billy's voice hypnotize me with the stories of a people I had never fully embraced as my own, something stirred within me. An ache in my chest, a rising rage and hatred, I guess you could say, at myself for not bothering to try and understand, at Leah and Seth and everyone else who had excluded me for not being as 'Quileute' as they were, even at Mama for not taking the time to explain, to tell me her stories, to _make_ me proud of where I had come from. It must have shown on my face because as I was sorting through what was happening in my mind, I felt a hand clasp my shoulder. I turned to see Jacob, his eyes glowing gold in the dim firelight and so full of understanding.

"There will be time later to figure it out after, there is still more to come. Stop thinking and listen to Dad, let everything flow. I'll explain it soon." Jacob whispered to me.

I nodded and reached up to clasp my hand over his, silently begging him to stay with me. For some reason he calmed the chaos in my soul, made me feel safe. Jacob sat next to me as Billy began the next story. He told of the coming of the Cold Ones, the sacrifice of Third Wife, and the ascension of the wolves. As Billy talked, beneath the rage, the hatred and the shame, something awoke within me, burning through my veins like acid. I could feel it rolling and stretching under the surface of my skin, howling in response to the ancient crimes that had created it. I could feel Jacob and someone else pulling me away from the circle, away from the comforting and constant glow of the embers of the fire. Then I felt the darkness and the forest surround me and Jacob holding me, whispering to me, encouraging me.

"Let go, David. Let him come. Don't be afraid, it happened to all of us. Don't fight the wolf within." Jacob's voice came, and there, in the dark with the Pack all around and Jacob whispering in my ear, I screamed. All the rage and pain, shame and loss melted from me as my flesh and bone melted into the form of the wolf that had awoken in me.

I was fully aware, my mind merging fully with that of the wolf, and he and I let everything go and howled out our joy at the newfound freedom and the beauty of the night experienced through brand new senses. The smells were sharper, the trees and other wolves, once just darker shadows inside the already dark forest, now standing out in sharp relief.

A brindle wolf approached me and I bristled, he came closer, I growled. He was not my Alpha; I did not have to bow down to him. The brindle backed off and a black wolf took his place. I challenged this wolfs authority as well, but he did not back off. He looked at me calmly, then reached out one huge paw and swatted me on the nose, which pissed me right off. I lunged at him, how _dare_ he swat me like that?

The big black wolf raised his eyebrows at me, and then very calmly swatted me again, harder this time, hard enough to lay me out. I lay there dazed and the black wolf walked over to me. He slowly lowered his head, clamped his bone-crushing jaws over my jugular and shook me. As he shook me, I could hear laughter filtering into my thoughts. I went limp pondering this new development.

"What…" I thought.

"Nice of you to join the conversation David. Can I let you go now?" The voice, tinged with amusement was familiar to me.

"Jacob?" I asked.

"That's Alpha to you, Puppy." _That_ voice was familiar too.

"Shut it, Leah." Jacob said, releasing me.

I scrambled backward as well as I could in this new form.

"Jacob, I don't understand. What is happening to me?" I said, panicking now.

"This is your birth-right. Not everyone is chosen by the wolves. We thought they would have passed you over because of your mixed blood, but it seems we now have a new bloodline to add to the Pack. You and all of us here are werewolves. Every Quileute is born with the potential to change, but as you can see, few of us do, mostly males. I am Alpha, and now, you belong to us." Jacob said.

"What? NO! I don't want this! I want to go home!" I shouted.

"This is your home now." Jacob said, phasing back to his human form.

"No! I have people waiting for me, Lex and Lyla; we were supposed to get married when I got home." I was openly crying now, having phased back into my human form, unconsciously.

"First, you must learn to control the wolf, and then you can worry about your lovers. We will help you as best we can," Jacob said, pulling me close so that I was now sobbing on his shoulder, "You are not alone, David. You will never be alone now. You have a sister and nine brothers, including me. You have your parents and the whole tribe with you, and eventually, if you so choose, you will have your lovers again. But in the meantime, let us help you. Stay with us and learn about your heritage, your birthright and all the things you and your wolf can accomplish together. All I ask is that you respect my authority and that if you disagree with me, talk to me privately. Can you do that?"

I nodded against Jacob's superheated shoulder.

"Yes, Alpha." I said quietly, sniffing one last time.


End file.
